2011 Photo Highlights : 2011 Annual Report

1. Postdoctoral scholar, Kakani Katija Young separating krill, Meganyctiphanes norvegica, from the MOCNESS tow samples. (Image Courtesy of Kakani Young, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

2. WHOI mooring specialists routinely test mooring components before deploying them in the ocean. In July, mooring engineers Jeff Pietro and Jim Ryder tested one component—an ultra-stretchy rubber hose, sometimes called a "gumby hose," which has electrical conductors embedded in the hose wall to carry data. Pietro shackled the hundred-foot hose to an anchor, while Ryder guided the hose as a crane lifted it, pulling it to 180 feet, nearly twice its length. This hose will be used for the Coastal Surface Mooring, part of the National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatories Initiative. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

3. A group of scientists and engineers from WHOI, University of Washington, and Penn State checks a ship-towed sound source in the test pool at WHOI's Reinhart Coastal Research Center. The team was preparing for a two-week cruise in March 2011 aboard the R/V Hugh Sharp to study the acoustic properties of shallow waters off the coast of New Jersey. The finely tuned instrument was also used to study the effect that seafloor structure has on sound propogation--an important piece of knowledge for geologists who use sound to peer deep beneath Earth's crust. (Photo by Neil McPhee, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

4. Fred Wendt of IFM Geomar and WHOI research specialist Mark Dennett (partially hidden) inspect the REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle owned by the WAITT Institute as it is positioned on the LARS (Launch and Recovery System) during the April 2011 search for Air France Flight 447. The WHOI-led team used three of the vehicles to locate the wreckage of the airliner in nearly 2.5 miles of water off the northwest coast of Brazil. (Photo by Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

5. WHOI senior engineering assistant Greg Packard (far left) helps launch a REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle in April 2011. The vehicle, owned by the Waitt Institute, was taking part in the search for wreckage of Air France Flight 447 off the northeast coast of Brazil using sidescan sonar and cameras. The WHOI-led team eventually located and surveyed the airliner's debris field and set the stage for later retrieval of the plane's flight data recorders and the remains of several passengers. (Photo by Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

6. In April 2011 aboard NOAA's ship R/V McArthur II, WHOI engineer John Bailey (left) and researcher Miles Saunders (Penn State) signal that TowCam is ready to go back into the water. During the Gulf of Mexico cruise, co-led by scientists Tim Shank (WHOI) and Chuck Fisher (Penn State), the TowCam located deep-water corals and hard-bottom ecosystems near the Deepwater Horizon incident. TowCam takes seafloor images and topography profiles, collects water and rock samples, measures water properties, and sends data to the ship. In fall 2011, researchers will return with a remotely-operated vehicle to assess potential impacts of the oil spill on these newly-discovered ecosystems. (Photo by Walter Cho, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

7. The week of May 16^th, a panel of nearly 150 leaders of large research infrastructure programs visited WHOI for the Annual Review Meeting for the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). This large-scale initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and managed by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (COL), will create an integrated system of instrumented platforms in the world’s oceans to observe and monitor complex ocean processes. WHOI—with partners Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Oregon State University—will construct and install observing infrastructure in coastal and open ocean sites around the globe as part of the OOI. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

WHOI's Acoustic Communications group provided support for the Navy's 2011 Arctic Submarine Laboratory "ICEX" exercises north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Engineer Peter Koski deployed acoustic recorders in 24-inch Pelican cases miles away from camp. Retrieving one March 29, they found a polar bear investigating. "Hovering close by, we waited for the bear to move away, then touched down quickly to grab the gear and got back into the air before the bear decided the helicopter looked like a flying ice cream truck," he said. "No serious damage was done, the data was intact, and neither bear nor helicopter were injured."

(Photo by Peter Koski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

9. The Video Plankton Recorder (VPR), an underwater video microscope system capable of taking images of plankton and particulate matter as small as 50 microns, is shown here on the deck of R/V Oceanus recently in preparation for a research cruise in the Sargasso Sea. During the trip, WHOI's Cabell Davis, who was co-designer of the instrument, used it to measure the diversity and distribution of plankton as part of a larger study to examine the role of the organisms in cycling nutrients and gases between the ocean and atmosphere. Davis also recently took the VPR to the Gulf of Mexico, where he used it to examine potential biological impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Photo by Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

10. Team members ready the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason for testing off the WHOI dock in March 2011 in preparation for an upcoming expedition. Engineers in the National Deep Submergence Facility at WHOI first launched Jason and its sidekick Medea (not pictured) in 1988 for scientific study of the deep ocean and seafloor. Medea serves as a shock absorber, buffering Jason from the movements of the ship, while providing lighting and a bird’s eye view of the ROV during seafloor operations. Both are designed to operate to a maximum depth of 21,385 feet (6,500 meters). (Photo by Erin Koenig, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

11. In a recently published paper, oceanographer Phillip Richardson capitalized on his sailing and flying experiences to study the flight of albatrosses, which can travel great distances without flapping their wings. He concluded that the birds utilize the power of above-ocean wind shear while tacking like an airborne sailboat, a strategy he calls dynamic soaring. Above a wave, winds blow progressively faster the higher you ascend. As albatrosses rise, they cross a boundary into an area of brisk winds, gaining airspeed that allows them to climb effortlessly to heights of 10 to 15 meters above the ocean. Then they bank downwind and swoop down into another wave trough, adding airspeed as they cross the boundary in reverse, and begin the cycle again.

12.

WHOI engineers Kate McMonagle and John Lund work on an instrument that measures the concentration of carbon dioxide in both the air and the surface water. It is one of several sensors that will be mounted on a surface mooring for a test deployment of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The OOI is a multi-year, multi-institution program to establish sustained observing arrays at key locations in the ocean. WHOI leads the implementation of the Coastal and Global Nodes of the OOI, which include the Endurance Array, off the coast of Oregon, and the Pioneer Array off the coast of the Northeast U.S.

(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

13.

Workers from WHOI and Oregon State University deploy a Multi-Function Node (MFN) from the fantail of the R/V Wecoma near Newport, Oregon, in March 2011. After entering the water, the node came to rest on the seafloor but remained attached to the buoy seen floating behind the ship. The MFN was designed to house a variety of scientific instruments and allow recovery of the mooring anchor. The mooring (buoy plus node), which was built at WHOI, is a prototype of others that will be deployed as part of the Endurance Array of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a long-term, multi-institution integrated system collecting data to improve our understanding of inter-related systems in the ocean and on the seafloor.

(Photo courtesy of John Lund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

14. Tito Collasius, expedition leader with the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason filmed an interview recently with a crew from the Korean Broadcasting System for a documentary about deep-sea exploration. Jason was first launched in 1988 and has been used on hundreds of dives to explore hydrothermal vents in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. In May 2009, the ROV’s cameras captured the first video and still images of a deep-sea volcano actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor. (Photo by Erin Koenig, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

15. In January, WHOI Scientist Emeritus Sandy Williams presented the Institution’s President and Director Susan Avery with a small, wooden crucifix, given to him by an Argentinean naval architect. The architect told Williams that the cross was carved out of oak framing taken from the stern of the Dr. Bernardo A. Housay, an Argentine Coast Guard vessel he was refitting. The Houssay, Williams learned, was formerly the Atlantis--the 142-foot ketch commissioned by WHOI and first put into service in 1931. In 1966, Argentina purchased the Atlantis, renamed it El Austral, and commissioned it into the Navy. It was later transferred to the Argentine Coast Guard and renamed the Houssay in honor of a famous Argentinean scientist and Nobel Prize winner. The ship is currently used for oceanographic research and for training students. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

16. WHOI engineer Peter Koski from the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department sets up a remote recording station on a small ice floe in the Fram Strait, between Greenland and Spitsbergen, Norway. The goal of the experiment, which was supported by WHOI's Arctic Research Initiative, was to develop the capability for long-range wireless undersea communication and navigation links with unmanned undersea vehicles surveying under sea ice. This phase employed Norwegian Coast Guard Icebreaker KV Svalbard to test communications over ranges up to 100 kilometers. (Photo by Lora Van Uffelen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Last updated: September 27, 2012